Have you ever sat in a math classroom and wondered, “When will I ever use this?” You might have asked yourself this question when you first encountered “imaginary” numbers, and with good reason: What ...

Mathematician Girolamo Cardano, in his 1545 book dealing with complex numbers, "Ars Magna," dismissed them as "subtle as they are useless." Even Leonhard Euler, one of the greatest mathematicians ...

The Book of My Life by Girolamo Cardano, New York Review of Books Classics series/Granta, $14.95/£9.99, ISBN 1590170164 Reviewed by John Bonner MATHEMATICIAN, physician, engineer and ...